Over the Rainbow
by Becky O'Calahan
Summary: A collection of drabbles, constantly expanded. Chapter Fifteen: Hawkeye entertains himself.
1. Winter in Korea

It was cold. The snow that blanketed the ground had forced everything into an icy numbness.

The scrubs room was an ice box. Hands shook, teeth chattered as the freezing water splashed out over the rim of the sink and made spreading circles across the floor, abandoned to be wiped up after the deluge. After the blood and the pain were stayed for a few blessed hours and life continued until the next shift of soldiers fought over a hill in the bite of December.

The OR was as cold as the rest of the camp. The metal instruments chilled fingers through the gloves. All was cold, the surgeons, the nurses, the frost-bitten patients.

Except the blood. The blood was always warm.


	2. Sunrise

They stood staring over the ridge.

"We made it," Klinger finally broke the silence.

"I can't believe it's over. I feel like my entire life has been spent here," Margaret added, still staring out at the rising sun.

Hawkeye made a noncommital noise, unable to tear his eyes from the view. He spoke after a minute. "Three years. Short life."

"We were given the strength to last. That's something we can all be thankful for," Father Mulcahy bowed his head, and the other three followed suit. He whispered under his breath, a prayer for eternal peace in Latin, then lifted his head.

They resumed staring over the crest, absorbing ever crevices of the land.

"It wasn't worth it," Hawkeye spoke at last. He turned down the hill, and the others followed.


	3. Presents

_Radar_, the note read, _we thought you might like these. Nobody's used them since you left._

He opened the box that had been dropped on his front porch by a curious mailman. Inside sat a drum set, the same one he had played for talent nights a lifetime ago in a foreign country.

He lifted the cymbal and its stand out. The bronze was marred by a stark, blackened streak and the metal was slightly warped.

_PS, sorry about the burn. North Korea was using up for target practice again._

Radar felt the familiar pangs of guilt and relief that he was an ocean away.


	4. Popping Mad

_Bang!_

The explosion echoed through camp, then another, then another.

"What the Sam Hill is going on?" Colonel Potter stuck his head into Radar's office.

The clerk looked up, listening. "Sounds like the minefield, sir."

Colonel Potter, when the sounds became less erratic, quick-marched over.

Hawkeye was leaning over the very edge of the minefield, carefully not touching it with even his bootlaces. He picked up a covered metal pan and nonchalantly wandered to the speechless Colonel's side.

He removed the lid. "Popcorn, Colonel?"

Colonel Potter took a handful.


	5. Grey

_This is in response to mash100th's challenge 86: Sliver._

BJ ran his fingers through Hawkeye's hair. Shards of grey broke charcoal black, and he wondered if Trapper had seen this man before war sapped away the color. Had Trapper done this, posed on the bed with Hawk perched on top of him, fingers coursing, lips moving, mind wandering up, around, back to the black _(grey)_ hair?

_Not grey, _BJ reflected. Hawkeye was too complicated for grey. BJ's _(Trapper's) _Hawkeye was silver and fleeting, quicksilver, too hard to grasp, too tempting to avoid.

BJ wondered if Trapper had been able to let go, or if he sat home wishing that his wife had silver and ebony hair.


	6. Starch

"One should not have to knead one's shorts."

Hawkeye looked over, an amused glint in his eyes. "Starched again?"

"Again! Always!" BJ threw them across the room in disgust.

Hawkeye pulled out Frank's bottle of shaving cream, twisted off the lid, and pulled out the key to Frank's footlocker. He popped the lid and dug through the organized piles.

"Here." Hawkeye tossed over a pair of underwear. "Pass me yours."

BJ held Frank's garment at arms length. Hawkeye saw his expression. "Don't worry, Frank only uses them for inspections. Seems to think the Colonel will give new meaning to 'short-notice'."

"Won't he notice if his shorts suddenly have more starch in them than the common potato?"

Hawkeye shrugged. "So he'll have to stand a little straighter."


	7. Shaken, Not Stirred

Hawkeye's hands were shaking as he raised the martini glass to clink with his bunkmates. They both took a drink, and BJ politely refrained from asking.

His hands shook as he clutched at the pages of a book, eyes seeing the words but not understanding how the characters could be living through this.

His hands shook as he scrubbed up, vibrating so violently that he thought he would drop the soap. Gloves snapped on his wrists, and his hands still moved of their own will.

Then the metal instruments were slapped into Hawkeye's palm, and the shaking always stopped before cutting into a boy's body.


	8. First Impressions

_For mash100th's Chalenge 95: First_ _Impressions._

Newly-minted Major Margaret Houlihan ordered the driver to stop the jeep. She stared.

Off to the left, two unshaven, sloppily-dressed men stood chatting with a man in a fishing hat. No salutes, no insignia, just two men in shabby bathrobes.

To her right, some enlisted men were walking. They stepped right past her, without even a glance at the oak-leaves on her shoulders or a pause in their conversation.

She contained her discomfort and looked around for something, anything military.

There, approaching her. A salute snapped off. "Major Burns, reporting to assist the major!"

She held out her hand. "Call me Margaret."

_Big thanks to my reviewers, stonecoldfox and fishogynist. They mean a lot. :)_


	9. Silence

_For the Silence challenge on mash100th. I have a longer version under 'Silence is Silver.' Bow to the shameless plug._

I came home, and it was all different. I expected to be accepted back into society, as if nothing had changed.

I was wrong.

After the first round of hello's, it all got real quiet, like I was a strange animal that shouldn't be disturbed. Everyone acted all happy around me, but if I saw them on the street, they'd turn a corner.

I guess they ignore me because of the things I've seen done in the name of Freedom and America. They can't understand.

So they leave me in silence, and I have to wonder - better to be ignored here, or shot at there?

I prefer the silence.


	10. Pretense

Pretense

Sometimes, just sometimes, she pretends that he is Frank. Oh, she knows he imagines that she's Ellie or Samantha or whichever girl he has most recently closed ranks with, but Frank seems like a different kind of fantasy than those women. Deeper, more real, and maybe that's because he was more than a one-night stand.

She'd cared, for a while, and that was something you couldn't just wash away.

Did she want to?

She looks at Donald. He looks back at her, and she sees her first failed marriage.

_Not a bit_. In war time, everyone has to hold on to something.

_Thanks to Zekkass42 for her review:) And a rowdy hello to all you lurkers out there. Without you, I'd have no stats_. _And I've just realized, I posted the same drabble twice here and in other places..."Call Me Margaret" and "First Impressions" were one in the same. I've dug myself a nice little hole where I can live from now on with my shame. I cannot believe I did that._


	11. Desire

She watches him from across the tent.

He watches her while in the mess line.

She picks at her food, stirring it around with her fork. She sips her coffee, and he wishes he was that mug.

She looks around to make sure no one is looking, then raises an eyebrow suggestively at him. He resists the urge to run over there and massage her neck, instead slowly walking with his tray.

"Is this seat taken, Major?" he asks.

"Not at all, Major, sit down."she replies. She looks as pained as he feels.

"Where can we go?" he whispers urgently.

"Laundry truck. Five minutes."

They both get up, walking out in different directions.

_Thanks to Gremlin15 and Captain Evermind for their reveiws :)_


	12. Cleanliness

The first thing he did when he got home was take a shower.

The second thing was drag everything that had touched Korea into the night and leave it on the half-moonlit curb, a misshapen lump stark against the neighbor's uniform garbage cans.

His resolve lasted an hour and a half. At midnight, he was out there again, dragging it all back inside. He shoved it deep into his closet and let boxes and old clothing cave in around the bags.

The third thing he did was take another shower and hope that it all would wash away.


	13. Improvisation

Radar had a secret.

It was a big one, and he knew it would hurt if it was let out.

But – he'd looked so _lost _when Trapper just up and left, and Radar couldn't leave him looking so abandoned, like a puppy left out in the rain.

"No note? A letter? Nothing?" – Radar had seen the instant Hawkeye felt his heart torn in half – _"Nothing_?"

"Well, sir–" He made some words up quick and leaned forward, savoring the moment, and wishing it was real and not a lame attempt at fixing Trapper's life.

Hawkeye smelled like cheap gin and rough soap, and Radar pulled back fast and made the appropriate faces, all the while feeling his pulse quicken. It would give him such dreams-- nightmares --and he wished Hawkeye gave him more than a quick peck in return.

He wished that Trapper John had left a note, and hadn't trusted Radar O'Rielly to improvise.


	14. Disintegrate

BJ had just arrived when it happened. He shook it off as a mistake that could be ignored if he tried hard enough.

The second time, he began to think that there was more to it than met the eye.

The third time, he couldn't stand it any longer - there was simply no reason for this to happen. It didn't happen to normal people, it didn't happen back home, and he certainly didn't need it adding to his problems here.

"Hawkeye, how am I supposed to work like this?" BJ brandished the offending pair of socks in the air. "The second I get a new pair, they seem to fall apart at the seams."

Hawkeye dealt another card. "It's your own fault, you know. How could mere army socks be expected to stand up to those tugboats you call feet?"

BJ sighed. "Oh, never mind."

For the mash100th Disintegrate challenge.


	15. Distraction

Hawkeye sipped his drink, wondering why on earth he had signed up for this. Being bored to death was one thing. Being bored to insanity was another, and he thought that he had just about crossed that line.

It had seemed like a good idea. The monotony had been getting to him, wake up, eat, wait for patients, wait some more, go back to bed. And this had had some interesting highlights, but after four hours -_ four_ - even this lost its appeal.

"Klinger." Hawkeye examined himself in the mirror, then reconsidered his options. Stay here, or go back to watching Frank trim his nostril hair. "Next outfit. Something with pizzaz this time, please. Something to match my eyes."

A diversion was a diversion, after all.


End file.
